Monday, October 4, 2010

I just returned from a whirlwind tour of some of eastern Pennsylvania's best hawk-watching sites, capped by quality time spent on the rocks of Hawk Mountain.

Today, it was a quick sortie down to Waggoner's Gap, which can be a stellar lookout for birds of prey that are winging their way south.

Fall is a gorgeous time to be in the rugged mountains of Pennsylvania. The leaves are beginning to change, especially the brilliant scarlet foliage of Blackgum, Nyssa sylvatica.

However, lovely as the forests are at Waggoner's Gap, this was the view from the summit. Your blogger stands in light rain, enshrouded by mist that cut visibility to 100 feet or so. Raptors? Zero. Was not the day for it; they wouldn't have been flying and even if they were, it wouldn't have been possible to see them. Ah, well - at least I got to see the place, and get a feel for it. There'll be another time.

The weather was far superior for sky-watching yesterday, and the day before. Here, I perch on a rocky promontory known as Bake Oven Knob, yesterday. The view is stupendous, and raptors often wing by practically at arm's length. Upon arrival at the knob, a subadult Bald Eagle appeared and traced a few languid circles about 40 feet up and directly overhead.

2 comments:

Jim, You had the same view of Hawk Mountain as we when we visited last fall - but there was more FOG then!Thank you so much for a great presentation of "Owls of Ohio" tonight for Trimoraine Audubon of Lima. And thank you for the autograph of my "Wild Ohio" - such a GREAT booik.Looking forward to visiting with you in the future.Stay safe!Jill

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About Me

I am a lifelong Ohioan who has made a study of natural history since the age of eight or so - longer than I can remember! A fascination with birds has grown into an amazement with all of nature, and an insatiable curiosity to learn more. One of my major ambitions is to get more people interested in nature. The more of us who care, the more likely that our natural world will survive.

About the photos, and permission to use

All photographs on these web pages are the exclusive property of Jim McCormac, and are protected under United States and International copyright laws. The photographs may not be copied, reproduced, stored, distributed or manipulated without written permission. All rights are reserved.

If you contact me requesting free photos, the reply may be long in coming :-)

I've been taking photographs for a few decades, but never became fully interested and engaged in photography until 2003. That's when I got my first digital camera. Since then, photography has become a passion and a steadily growing addiction. If you delve back far enough into this blog, you will see photos that were made with a variety of Panasonic point & shoot bridge cameras. Then came a Canon Rebel DSLR, followed by a Nikon D7000. I've since returned to Canon, and use their gear almost exclusively. My camera bodies are a Canon 5D Mark III, which is an awesome full-frame sensor camera, and a Canon 7D Mark II. The latter is a 1.6 crop factor camera, and I use it almost exclusively for birds and distant wildlife.

The lens bag includes the following Canon lenses: 100mm f/2.8L-macro; the sensational but bizarre MP-E 65 mega-macro; a 180mm f/3.5 macro; a 16-35mm f/4L wide-angle; a 50mm f/1.4; a 100-400 f4.5/5.6 II; and a 500mm f/4L II, sometimes used with a 1.4 extender (which makes it a 700mm). I've also got a Tamron 70-200mm and Sigma 24mm Art (great lenses!). I do lots of macro, and my typical flash gear is the Canon Twin-Lite setup. If the gear needs three-legged stabilization, it is mounted on an Induro tripod, attached to an Induro Gimbal head. Finally, I've got a GoPro Hero, which is fully waterproof and can be used for underwater work. Sometimes I even use the camera or video feature on my iPhone 5S smartphone - it's amazing how good phone cameras have become.

Speaking, guiding gigs 2016

NOTE: Click on listed events for details (inmost cases).

January 16, 2016 - Ohio Ornithological Society's annual winter raptor day at the Wilds, Muskingum County, Ohio. Leading field trip.